Butterworth & Dickinson

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Butterworth & Dickinson was a Burnley-based textile machinery manufacturer in Lancashire, England. Known as "Butts and Dicks," they made looms that were exported worldwide. The Saunder Bank works was started by Samuel Dickinson and, in 1871, inherited by his nephew William Banks of Tosside, Bolton-by-Bowland, who teamed up with John Butterworth of Oak Bank. The partnership expanded the Saunder Bank works and took on the Globe Iron Works. Around 1889 they built new premises at Rosegrove and developed interests in cotton manufacturing at Westgate Shed. William Dickinson was an active businessman who served as Mayor of Burnley.

In the 1930s, during a recession, several textile machinery makers merged to form Textile Machinery Makers Ltd. Butterworth & Dickinson continued to trade under their own name until the 1970s, when the group was folded into Platt UK Ltd, and the name later became Platt Saco Lowell in 1991. Demand for looms declined after the British cotton industry waned in the 1950s. Some looms were repurposed to weave fiberglass, producing cloth used for fighter aircraft nosecones and for moulds for the Concorde nose. A number of looms survive in museums, including the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the National Wool Museum.